


The Unnatural Case of the 1925 Property Act

by Dr_Fell



Category: Lord Peter Wimsey - Dorothy L. Sayers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-02
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-04-18 17:51:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4715015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dr_Fell/pseuds/Dr_Fell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the deeply regrettable behaviour of Mr Urquhart, Harriet Vane finds herself summoned to the late Philip Boyes's solicitor. (AU Strong Poison)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nineveh_uk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nineveh_uk/gifts).



“I fully understand your reluctance to profit from murder, Miss Vane,” the solicitor said, his hands steepled before him. “Indeed, your scruples do you great credit, but none the less...”

For the first time since she had entered the room, indeed, his expression had shown some warmth. Something - a too-prickly honesty, maybe - made her interrupt him. 

“No, you misunderstand me. I don't have any objection to profiting from murder. That is, if Philip had left me a weeping widow with four infants, I'd have no reluctance in taking all Miss Garden's money and spending it to the best of my ability. But as it is...”

He was shaking his head , regretfully. “Miss Vane, again, I fully appreciate your scruples. But Mr Boyes' will makes it clear that he regards you as his wife, and that he fully recognised his duty, therefore, to protect you as such. If more men had recognised their responsibilities outside, as well as in marriage, I may say, my life as a solicitor would have been a happier one.” 

And to say that she had been badgered and harassed and bored and patronised and ignored until somehow the love had leaked out of her and only a sense of hopeless duty was left – all that seemed so inappropriate in this polished room, with the deed boxes all around, that Mr Murbles was able to continue. 

“And if I may be frank, the actions of the late Mr Urquhart were such that there is no-one else to accept the legacy. After Reverend Boyes' decease, and Mrs Wrayburn's sudden death... One can only wonder at what was in his mind when he poisoned both Mr Philip Boyes and himself that evening. It seems really quite inexplicable.”

That was not what Eiluned had said, or Sylvia either. They had clearly both thought – although, to be fair, only Eiluned had said it straight out – that it was perfectly explicable for anyone enduring a three course meal with Philip Boyes to feel that the best filling for the omlette would be arsenic all round.

“Now, had Mrs Wrayburn died an hour after Mr Boyes, rather than an hour before him,” Murbles went on, “We would not be in this position. But we must deal with the facts as they are.” 

“I'm sure some distant relative can be dragged up, if the fortune is as large as you imply,” Harriet said. “Some long lost claimant from overseas, if necessary.”

“Oh no, Miss Vane,” and Murbles seemed to gain a new energy. “No, not since the new Property Act of 1925. The law has changed entirely on that point. No, if a person dies intestate, only their parents, spouse, siblings and their issue can inherit. The matter is quite clear. Now, that means that there is no-one to inherit from Mr Boyes, should you refuse the legacy. The money would simply go to the Duchy of Lancaster, or, in other words, to the Crown. And,” he gave a little dry, papery laugh, “I can assure you that the Crown has quite enough money as it is.”

“How much is it, then?” she said, and was startled to hear the weary watchfulness in her own voice.

The amount he said left her speechless until she was on the doorstep.


	2. Two Red Herrings

“In the name of all that's holy, take away that cup and give the woman a whisky,” said Eiluned. “She's dead on her feet.”

“Whisky, please, but don't take away the tea,” Harriet Vane said, reaching out towards it gratefully. The winter evening had turned chilly, and she was not yet accustomed to taking a taxi rather than the omnibus. “Disposing of money is every bit as hard as acquiring it. And the surprising thing is that it's even more thankless.”

“That excrescence, Vaughan, I suppose,” Eiluned said. She gave the fire another dubious poke, and stood back from it. “If you could set up a charitable organisation for the alleviation of poor quality coals for artists, generations would bless you.” 

“And I'd be commemorated in every form of art, from a full-length portrait oils to a handsome marble bust,” Harriet agreed.

“Oh, don't hope for oils and marble,” Sylvia said, re-emerging from a cupboard with a half-bottle of whiskey, of better quality than the fire and the furniture would suggest the inhabitants of the artists' studio could afford. “The academicians can pay for all the quality coals they like. It's the poor devils who eek out a living in watercolour sketches and porcelain that need the Society for the Alleviation of Artists' Chillblains.” 

When they were all holding a glass of whiskey, Eiluned began again. “I'd toast your new project, Harriet, if only it were for something more worthwhile. But to give money to Vaughan to prop up a magazine that no-one wants to read for another two issues before he admits the inevitable...” 

“I know,” Harriet said. “I knew as soon as I wrote the cheque it was the wrong thing to do.” She was weary and discouraged by the day, and she could hear the flat tone of her voice. “Before I went there, I thought it was what Phil would have wanted, and I had a moral duty, but...” 

“Moral duty be hanged,” Eiluned interrupted, but Sylvia was already hushing her.

“No, that's it,” Harriet said. She got up, and shoved her armchair a little closer to the luke-warm grate. “I didn't ask for this money, but I'm damn well going to spend it well. And if that means making sure there are good quality coals for sale at a fair price, then I'll do it. People might laugh, but it's better than... oh, I don't know the words. Art that pretends to be worth something, but's it's no more real than this fire.”

“That's nine-tenth of what's done,” Sylvia said. “And how are you going to find the tenth that matters?”

“I don't have to find the tenth,” Harriet said. “That's what I mean about the coals. If I make sure people have the opportunity to do the work – that they have the coals to heat them at a fair price, or the place to work, or just the education in the first place – then what they do is down to them and their conscience.”

“Model studios, with H&C and labour-saving devices throughout?” Eiluned enquired. 

“Why not?” said Harriet.

“Well, if it gets rid of inefficient chars like Mrs Dawkins,” Sylvia said, “Then I'm all for it.” She held up her glass. “To practical philanthropy. Long may it flourish.”

Eiluned shook her head, and held up her glass in turn. “To good art, good music and good writing. And that includes Harriet's own. Don't forget your own work, Harriet, in your sudden enthusiasm for supporting others.”


	3. Employers must Advertise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few months after Harriet Vane's unexpected inheritance of a considerable fortune, Eiluned and Sylvia visit to express their artistic concerns.

Her agent constrained herself to increasingly tart notes, enquiring as to whether there was any point attempting to sell three Robert Templeton stories to the Daily Yell for their summer special. Her bank manager troubled her only with solicitude, through the medium of heavy paper and a first class stamp. It was Eiluned and Sylvia who arrived on Harriet's doorstep in person.

“It's just as I predicted,” Eiluned said, once her short, sturdy figure was safely within the premises and could hardly be ejected. “Philip's bequest has done precisely what he always wanted to do – stopped you writing.”

Harriet declined to point towards her typewriter in justification. True, the sheets of paper currently curled up there dealt with murder rather than charitable funds. But this was merely an exception, during the past three months, and only because the agent had moved from the tart to the waspish.

“I...” she began, and broke off in frustration with herself. “Oh, lets have a drink. Vaughan collared me today, in the British Library of all places, and told me in detail what he thought of money-grabbing blue-stocking harpies. All at a most unsuitable volume, of course, so eventually he was thrown out by a deputation of librarians. But I don't think I'll care to go back to the Reading Room for a while.” 

She suited the action to the word, while her guests divested themselves of a panoply of coats, hats, scarves and gloves. Miss Vane's flat was somewhat warmer than the studio where they had last met.

The wine was good, and Sylvia raised an enquiring eyebrow.

“I haven't become an aesthetic,” Harriet said, half-laughing, and taking an appreciative sip. “It can't all be meetings about drains and being ranted at by literary parasites.”

“Drains? So you're really going ahead with the model studios?” Eiluned said. Her stubby fingers looked incongruous around a wine-stem. 

“Yes, model studios for a starting point. I think they should – what's the phrase? - wash their own faces, once they're up and running. Fair rents, of course, but enough to make people feel they're paying their way.”

“I'm a great believer in artists paying their way,” Eiluned said. “Pounds, shillings and pence is what makes us stop and think about what we're doing. If one funds people willy-nilly, all one gets is people like Vaughan, who drag on and on and become more and more self-righteous. But if one has to think about what someone would pay hard cash for, then one's thinking about what matters to that person. And thinking about what matters to one person, is the beginning of thinking about what matters to humanity.” She stopped, shrugged her shoulders, and took a long swallow of the wine. “That's how it seems to me, anyway.”

“So you don't think I should blue the whole lot on fine wines and then devote myself to my art?”

Eiluned opened her mouth, and then looked over to Sylvia, curled neatly into an armchair facing her.

“No,” Sylvia said. “We talked it over – it's unwarrantable interference, I know, but we care about your work – and I've come to agree with Eiluned. If you use the money for yourself, you risk becoming some form of dilettante. You know the sort of person. Full of knowledge and talent, but it never gets beyond their own study. Or if they write a book, it's bound in cloth-tooled leather in an edition of 125 copies to friends and family only. What use is that?”

The wine was indeed a very good one, Harriet thought, very pleasant on the palate. Some of the day's tension was unknotting itself from her shoulders. Meanwhile, she was content to stay silent and listen. 

“So, we have a suggestion,” Sylvia continued. She looked firmly across at Harriet. “Put as much of the money as you choose into a trust of some sort, and hire a proper administrator to run it. Goodness knows you can justify it.”

“I was beginning to think that myself,” Harriet admitted, and the knot of tension relaxed a little further. “That's what the well-run charities seem to do. They take an accommodation address, have a secretary to run it, and a committee of three or four to decide how to dole out the grants. Then, at least one wouldn't receive all the complaining letters to one's own address.” 

“And Vaughan can vary his targets from time to time,” Eiluned added. “Pour us another glass, Harriet, if the cellar can stand it.” 

“This solicitor of Phil's – Murbles, was it? He'd stand on a committee, I should think. And...,” Sylvia took a breath. There was an indefinable something in her look that made her hostess alert. “There's a woman who might be just the person for you. Ann Dorland. She was companion to a great-aunt, who died. Ann's looking for an occupation at the moment.” 

The wine deserved to be poured slowly, and Harriet made it an excuse for a minute's silence. Until... she raised an eyebrow. “Dorland? My memory for names is bad, but wasn't there some kind of scandal?”

Eiluned, honest to a fault, jumped in. “Because she had the bad judgement to fall for a rotter, that's all. She got engaged to a doctor who was convinced that the world would be a better place if he had more money to spend on his pet projects. Perhaps it might have been, but he killed off the Dorland's great uncle or something to get it. And of course, the police are fools who thought she did it.” She thumped her hand against the table in emphasis, and the wine glass shivered. 

“I don't want someone with bad judgement. And can the trust really afford to be associated with any more murders?”

“No, but think it over. She's prickly, poor woman, what with first being thrown over for Naomi Rushworth and then have the Great British Police dragging her half-way to the dock, but she's got common sense, she's well organised, and most of all, she's got presence. And you know what it's like to have a murder investigation poking around one's relations, even if you were never really suspected. Ann got through all that and she never - oh, damn it.” The wine, and what remained of the wine glass, pooled out across the table.

“I'll interview this Dorland woman of yours,” Harriet said, as they finished the mopping up process. “If, mind you, I find a committee member to join me, and he thinks it's a reasonable idea. I'll make an appointment with Mr Murbles in the morning.”


	4. Chapter 4

The knock on the door of the studio had an indefinable quality of the frustrated and aggrieved about it, so that Eiluned raised her eyebrows as she crossed the room. 

Harriet Vane was wearing a smart coat, and an unexpectedly smart hat with a deep and slanted brim. Peering beneath it, Eiluned saw precisely the expression of annoyance that the knock had suggested. 

"Is all not well in the world of philanthropy? Are the artists unprofitable? Or are the the drains merely blocked?" 

"Worse than that," Harriet retorted. "I've brought champagne, which was supposed to be celebratory, but we'll just have to drown our sorrows instead. So long as you've got three glasses that are actually made of glass, and no-one's going to drink out of a tooth-mug."

Eiluned grinned, and led the way into the narrow kitchen. "One thing we artists are never short of is glasses." She pulled three off the draining rack, calling out for Sylvia as she did so. 

"So you say, but I have vivid memories of studio parties at the Kropotskys..." 

"With kippers frying on the stove and trying to avoid getting jam on Nina's sketches," Sylvia added, giving Harriet an abrupt hug. "Drinking out of tooth-mugs is the least of it." 

"Subsidise the studio glassware for your protegees, why don't you?" Eiluned said. "Make it a condition of residence. Speaking of which, I can't help noticing the continuing absence of Vane's model studios. Or does the champagne denote otherwise?"

"As I said, the champagne is consolation rather than anything else. Brooke Studios are still an airy nothing, lacking a local habitation, even if they have a name." Harriet uncorked the bottle with rather more panache and determination than she might have shown a year before, a determination that seemed to match with the stylish coat and hat. Decidedly, Eiluned felt, the unexpected legacy had had its effects, good as well as bad. 

The champagne was good, and as good champagne demands, there was a pause before the conversation took up again. 

"Spill the news as well as the fizz, old girl," Eiluned said. "Why the annoyance writ so clear across your face? You can't help to fool us artists." 

"Oh," Harriet let out a frustrated sigh. "Merely that Murbles has got entirely the wrong idea about the sort of person I want on the Board for the Brooke Foundation. I explained it clearly and simply to him - I want people who have actual knowledge about what I'm doing, people who can bring positive experience to the Board - and who does he propose except a cathedral Dean and a Lord? And worse than that, the Lord happened to have dropped in on him, and got dragged in to meet me. The whole thing's a fait accompli, unless I put my foot down sharpish." 

"A Dean?"

"Oh, the Dean's not too bad. Rumour has it he has some knowledge of art and a talent for saying the necessary but unpalatable. I'll accept the Dean. But the Lord... Heaven help us. A pale sleek creature with an eyeglass and a silver-topped stick. I can't stand men with sleek hair since Urquhart."

"An eyeglass and a stick," Sylvia half-choked on a mouthful of champagne. Her eyes rolled to Eiluned's, who looked equally amused.

"What on earth am I supposed to do with this creature on the Board? I couldn't say what I thought to Murbles at the time, not with the man there in the room, but Miss Dorland looked like a stuffed fish when I told her later, so presumably he's a particularly useless specimen of the breed." 

"Miss Dorland knows him?" 

"Apparently so. Her aunt was old Lady Dormer, so I suppose she's moved in those kind of circles, not that she boasts of it. She didn't say anything more than that the man had been extremely helpful at the time of her aunt's death but really, he gazed at me as if he was half-witted. A brother of the Duke of Denver." She looked across at the two of them. "What's causing the hilarity? Don't tell me he's a certified lunatic or something. Really, I thought better of Murbles."

"I think..." Eiluned said, putting her glass down before the champagne could spill across the floor. "I think perhaps you should have another think about Lord Peter Wimsey. You never know. You might get on rather well."


End file.
